


about stories and History

by insertcleveracejoke



Series: tell a story, make History [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book: Night Watch, M/M, Pocket watch au, The Trousers of Time, actually something i rewrote, alternative universe, might end up writing more about this AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 14:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20584010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insertcleveracejoke/pseuds/insertcleveracejoke
Summary: The thing about History is that it is made by people.You can tell your little speech about dictators and History always following its course until you're blue in the face and in your heart; if that were true, there would be no History Monks. If History could be trusted to follow its tracks like a train, why would there need to be more than a conductor?





	about stories and History

The thing about History is that it is made by people.

You can tell your little speech about dictators and History always following its course until you're blue in the face and in your heart; if that were true, there would be no History Monks. If History could be trusted to follow its tracks like a train, why would there need to be more than a conductor? Oh yes, there are patterns, but there are patterns everywhere if you look hard enough. They were also created by people.

History is nothing more than a story we tell hoping for a happy ending.

(Of course, happy endings as we know them don't exist in History.)

(That's the first thing you learn in class.)

(A revolution may succeed, but things become normal. Samuel Vimes would say all revolutions come around again. Things are not quite as dire; revolutions change things, of course. But not all for the better. Not forever.)

(A revolution succeeds, but the people who fought in it still die.)

(There is a better ruler, but he is not necessarily a good one.)

(There are no happy endings in History. There are barely endings and very rarely beginnings. But you can still hope for a happy middle.)

(These are rare too. But if this is a story…)

(If this is another world's History…)

You can talk about History always following its course until your face and heart are blue and your mouth is dry. The fact remains: details change. We might tell a story a million times, and its skeleton doesn't change, but it has a different face after the last telling. That's because History doesn't care about the details. Why would it? History is the big picture. People are small. They weave details like a tapestry.

In the leg of the Trousers of Time we know, Sam Vimes completed a time loop and went home. Good men died. More survived. An assassin fought for a dead man with lilacs in his teeth and a murderer was hanged in the light of day to show everyone that Justice was done. We know this story. We have read it, again and again, despite knowing it, because what mattered was not the end as much as it was the journey.

Have you ever wondered if that's all that happened in another leg of the Trousers?

Take a look at a pocket watch the Vetinari we know owns. Watch how he's always so careful not to let anyone else see it, not even Drumknott, and wonder why. (I'll tell you why.) See Vetinari only deem to open it when he's sure he's completely alone, and read the date engraved inside… do you see? You're not surprised to see the date we know, the lilacs engraved by its side, a story which end Vetinari had thought had happened decades before it did, are you? But it's just a pocket watch only seen by one man alive.

In the leg we know, that's all there is to it.

Sir Samuel Vimes is a married man with a child and a wife he loves with all of his hardened heart. He did the job that was in front of him, and came back to them, to his own future and his own life. It didn't necessarily have a happy ending, no, but it was a happy middle. It was worthwhile. That Samuel Vimes wouldn't have traded that life for anything in the world, and he would be right not to, because it was his choice. It was the story he was telling himself and a story he loved. 

But there were other Sams in other worlds, and some of them made different choices. Many of them would not have traded the lives their choices gave them for anything either.

One of them met a young assassin whose older face he knew. In the dark, he mentioned his younger self, not believing it would make a big difference. And in one of the legs, it didn't. Vetinari went on with his life and John Keel with his death. In that leg, Vimes still came back to his Sybil, and the Patrician never dreamed of anything different. He was right not to, because that Sam Vimes never saw him as more than the Patrician, as a ruler and a man who infuriated him above anything else. That Vetinari kept the locket close to his heart when he could afford to and in a safe when he couldn't. It was his, so it was a very safe indeed. 

Vetinari never forgot the man who he saw fighting in the revolution, but the man didn't see why he should remember the assassin who fought in the aftermath.

(See? There are no happy endings. This is not a fairytale.)

(And yet…)

In the other leg of those particular Trousers, take a second look at that Pocket Watch. See how one man besides Vetinari saw it and lived to tell himself the story. See the second date engraved just below the first, less roughed up around the edges, newer, brighter.

See how this Vetinari might have a different scar, but he also holds himself differently, for the better.

This Vetinari might not have a happy ending, but he's happy. (Ask him if it's enough. He might not answer, but in the story he's telling himself- it is.)


End file.
